Almost eight months ago we published Heads in the Sand. This story highlighted DuneCare’s need for help to quickly bolster the fore dune which, after protecting Wooli many times, was badly damaged by major storms in quick succession. Unfortunately, Clarence Valley Council (CVC) refused our request to use beach scraping even though this is a proven, inexpensive and widely used solution to this problem.

However, Council’s refusal was quickly shown to be a major error when shortly afterwards the (then) Environment Minister, Rob Stokes, strongly supported scraping in his speech to the NSW Coastal Conference. He followed this up by saying he would shortly write to the Council recommending and offering funding for beach scraping at Wooli.

So what’s the bad news in that you ask? Well, just before he wrote to CVC he was caught up in the recent reshuffle of the NSW Government and lost the Environment Portfolio. The major impacts on Wooli were:

a further six month delay in Ministerial approval of Wooli’s coastal management plan (CZMP) which aims to provide longer term protection of the beach.

Fortunately, the tide then started turning (pun intended) in Wooli’s favour when the new Environment Minister, Gabrielle Upton, was appointed.

CCPA quickly enlisted the help of Clarence MP, Chris Gulaptis, in arranging a meeting with her to go over these issues. Like Chris, our new CVC Mayor, Jim Simmons, also showed his support for Wooli by agreeing to a senior council manager, Des Schroder, joining us in attending the meeting thereby presenting a combined community and council view to Minister Upton.

So the Good News is, following the June 1st meeting, the Minister has taken two important steps:

She has written to CVC supporting beach scraping at Wooli without the need for either an approved CZMP or further environmental studies and with funding being immediately available and

Confirmed she would prioritise making a decision on whether or not to approve our CZMP. The Coastal Panel had earlier recommended against approving it until Council does several more studies (resulting in a major delay) while we and the council recommended approving it now, with any critical studies to be included in its first stage. We suspect the Minister’s decision may still be weeks away, hopefully not months.

After eight months of delays these steps make it feel like the force is with us again and Wooli’s future is being dug out of government limbo. Let’s leave our fingers crossed because the fore dune is still damaged, the storm season is still coming and the CZMP is not yet approved.

You might remember our article early this year thanking DuneCare for creating a healthy fore dune. The article also raised the concern that “..we are worried that the fore dunes that have been built up might be taken by a big storm and then it takes us 6 months to organise a beach scraping project (to repair it) – and there could be another storm in that time which could seriously damage the main dune.”

Well those two storms in June brought this fear very much to the fore as the fore dune lost about half its sand and the foot of the main dune was exposed in several places. As that article foreshadowed “..Based on very experienced independent advice, the CCPA steering committee has begun the next step of working with the Council to have a beach scraping plan pre-approved and pre-funded so as to be ready when it’s needed to quickly repair the fore dune.”

CCPA’s success in proactively working with Council to develop the CZMP (which includes scraping) provided an encouraging basis for this discussion.
But on the other hand, CCPA has been unsuccessfully promoting beach scraping (also known as Nature Assisted Beach Enhancement ) as a practical measure to mitigate risks at Wooli for a number of years.

The four barriers to NABE raised during these promotions are listed below, each followed by the independent –expert advice that CCPA has received.

Using NABE would weaken the CZMP case with State Depts. for using beach nourishment

NABE is a short term management technique to overcome erosion which can occur when multiple storms occur in a relatively short period. It is not in competition with beach nourishment and in fact is often used in conjunction with beach nourishment, as well as on its own.

There is insufficient evidence/studies proving the value of NABE

This is incorrect. There are many papers available demonstrating the value of beach scraping, some of which are summarised in the 2016 NSW Conference papers. The Engineers Australia 2013 Conference also had an extended seminar on the topic with a very large list of references.

Wooli beach is a net-loser of sand so the scraped sand would not be replaced

This is again incorrect. Whether a beach is or is not a net loser of sand it is where that sand is stored on the beach that is critical from the point of view of limiting main dune erosion. If some of the sand is stored in beach-scraped dunes then they form a buffer which can absorb some or all of the erosion before the main dune is exposed to direct attack. New Brighton is a classic example of this.

There are no funds available, even for a Pilot study, even if CCPA largely funded it

Even if CCPA pays there are no funds ? The logic eludes me. Besides, State grant funds are made available for community and council projects.

Unfortunately, our recent discussion with Council was only successful in identifying a fifth barrier, which is

that NABE is included in the CZMP and so can’t be used until the CZMP is approved by the Minister. Until then, NABE was considered to be outside the official CZMP process.

Many councils have been successfully using NABE for many decades without the need for a certified CZMP and so councils shouldn’t use the absence of a certified CZMP as an excuse for not undertaking NABE.

In the absence of community-led NABE , the official approach is firstly to encourage DuneCare to rebuild the fore dune (which of course they are) and secondly to wait until the CZMP process is complete. Optimistically this would mean NABE could not proceed until at least 2018 which is the earliest time in which the CZMP foresees the beach needing sand renourishment. The underpinning assumptions here are that the main dune survives this summer’s cyclone season (forecast to be worse than usual) as well as the 2017 winter storms.

The possible ray of sunshine is a rumour that the Minister may include his support for NABE in his presentation at November’s NSW Coastal Conference. Armed with that, CCPA will be approaching not only Council Officers but also our elected Councillors urging them to get behind the urgent repair work needed on Wooli’s dunes.

As reported in our recent story, Wooli beach dodged a bullet; its fore dune prevented damage to the main dune from June’s (east coast low) storm.

Storm surges into bush land

However, Jones Beach next to the southern breakwater does not have the benefit of a fore dune. These pictures from Roger Welch show how the storm surge penetrated deeply into the bush behind the beach.

Finding ways to prevent similar incursions on Wooli Beach is clearly a priority for the Protect Wooli campaign so our beach doesn’t have a repeat of the 1995 experience.

1995 near the school (thanks Leone for the pic)

Here are a couple of ways of doing this:

firstly, each of us can be part of the DuneCare effort to replace, recover and restore the sand traps hit by the storm so that the wind-blown sand rebuilds the fore dune asap. Contact Sharon on 0448602898 if you can help with this. Thanks to Elaine Pearce and friends from Old Bar Beach community who recently donated several rolls of shade cloth to us

secondly, the CCPA steering committee will continue to lobby the Council to use a beach scrape to help nature and DuneCare quickly repair the most damaged areas before the next storm arrives. So far Council has focused on the bureaucratic difficulties of doing this while denying the benefits. We may need your support to raise funds for recognised experts to help CCPA progress this initiative.

Thanks to the DuneCare members and volunteers who worked steadily over the summer holidays on sand-trapping and replanting both the main dune and the fore dune. In some places the fore dune is even beginning to spawn another little dune nearer the water. DuneCare’s ongoing success is a credit to Craig Drabsch as he hands over the Coordinator responsibility to Sharon Nelson after three years. Thanks Craig and Sharon.

We reported earlier in the Little Hero article that the fore dune has already protected the main dune from substantial storms. However, as Kristin Stubbins noted recently “..we are worried that the fore-dunes that have been built up might be taken by a big storm and then it takes us 6 months to organise a beach scrape (to repair it) – and there could be another storm in that time” which could seriously damage the main dune.

So it was timely to hear from Angus Gordon, Chair of the NSW Coastal Committee, that “I would always recommend it (beach scraping, also known as Nature Assisted Beach Enhancement) during the recovery phase after a severe erosion event. … I think I would put beach scraping on the “to do” list if you see the fore dunes being eroded”. For more detail on Angus’ views here is his recent paper, some of the highlights of which are :

Beach scraping provides potential to limit the erosion impacts of subsequent storms. Reforming a fore dune sand buffer prior to secondary storms can reduce, but not overcome, the long-term rate of shoreline recession.

Focus on dune re-formation is vital. The sooner a sediment buffer is re-established at the back of the beach, the better it provides protection against following storm events. The formation of an incipient fore dune assists with deflection of onshore winds at the rear of the beach, allowing gravity to assist in releasing sand for depositing on the emerging dune.Also, the sooner the incipient dunes are formed the sooner re-planting and re-colonisation by remnant vegetation can occur, thus “kick-starting” the natural process that will eventually lead to the re-establishment of an effective, vegetated dune system.

NABE is basically a mechanical intervention to speed up the natural processes of beach and fore dune recovery after a storm event. It is a useful tool to achieve rapid reestablishment of a fore dune and beach berm. It can be used not only to create a buffer against further back beach erosion during following storms, but also to re-establish a dune crest level that will prevent a wash through from wave over-topping. While it is not a panacea for overcoming long-term coastal recession it can reduce the recession rate by mitigating the compounding impacts of multiple storm erosion events.

Based on that very experienced advice, the CCPA steering committee has begun the next step of working with the Council to have a beach scraping plan pre-approved and pre-funded so as to be ready when its needed to quickly repair the fore dune.

Cautionary note: meaningful progress of that plan will be tied to getting our new CZMP approved by the Minister along with the funding application that went along with it.

That’s when the ‘one step back’ happened. The CZMP proposed to get half the sand needed to nourish the village dunes from the national park behind Wilsons Headland. NSW National Parks department rejected that idea meaning the CZMP would not be approved.

Now for the two steps forward.

Firstly, Council are to be congratulated for promptly approving an adjustment to the plan which retainsbeach nourishmentto protect the dunes but uses a different approach to get the needed sand. The northern end of Wooli beach will continue to provide about half the sand originally planned for, but will do so every 2.5 years rather than every 5 years (depending on availability and need).

Secondly, Council added to the revised plan a proposal from CCPA to investigatebeach scrapingas a way to supplement the sand supply from north Wooli. Thanks to members Brian Saye (surveyor) and Bob Stack (engineer) for their Submissions which formed the basis for our proposal.

Finally, a couple of cautions about the Plan’s likely success. Agreement will be needed from the Departments of Land and Marine Parks to take sand from north Wooli before this revised CZMP is likely to be approved by the Minister. Also state government approval of Council’s funding application is needed in order to get the plan started. Guarded optimism would be a fair summary.